Council passed legislation allowing for crematories to operate in I-2 Industrial Districts in the City of Stow on Thursday. This was an amendment to our zoning code which required a public hearing. Council delayed this public hearing by a month to make sure all residential addresses that are adjacent to the I-2 district were provided notice about the hearing. There were no comments last night at the Council meeting or public hearing from any residents. This change in the code gives a business operating a crematory the right to apply for a conditional zoning certificate to operate in the I-2 District so long as the operation is greater than 250 feet from a residential property. The business would still have to get an approval of a conditional zoning certificate by the Planning Commission prior to any operation. Personally, I believe this use fits in our industrial district, provides limitation on proximity to residential and still has a check in the approval process prior to being allowed so I supported this update to the code.
Council also passed legislation to support the rebuilding of SKiP Park, a long discussed topic in the City. Council has stated since last year we want to see SKiP rebuilt, the legislation was not necessary but it is Council’s formal support was for a new playground and related items to get such installed, up to $600,000. The Mayor is currently fundraising for this project and at this time the only City money dedicated to the project is a $165,000 grant that the City received from First Energy several years ago for being a community that participates in the energy aggregation program. An update about fundraising is to be provided by the Mayor to Council in April so we can discuss how to get this project moving towards completion this year.
In 2012 the City of Stow leased the former Parks Maintenance building on Stow Road across from Silver Springs Park to EnviroScience, a private business in our City. In the 2012 lease, EnviroScience had the option to purchase the building in 2020 if they wanted to. EnviroScience did exercise its option to purchase the property and Council approved the transfer of a specified lot on that property to EnviroScience. This area remains zoned “O” Conservation and EnviroScience has permission to operate an administrative office in that area as they have for the last 8 years. I did have residents in the Bayside Lake neighborhood reach out to me as there was recently some surveying done to finalize the parcel sold to EnviroScience and I provided them this information about the transfer of ownership.
There has also been discussion with several Council members and residents recently about the failure of some to pick up after their dogs when they are out on walks. This brought up the discussion about whether we needed legislation to penalize someone if they failed to properly pick up after their dogs when they poop on other people’s property. The reality is that we did already have legislation requiring this, however the Law Department had suggested that Council make some slight amendments to the legislation that would make this only a minor misdemeanor with a penalty and remove the ability for it to escalate to a higher misdemeanor with a possible jail sentence. I agree that jail time is extreme for this type of violation and really would create more cost than necessary for the violation. This is a type of penalty that is very difficult to enforce as is and Chief Film verified with the Stow Municipal court that they only had every seen 1 such citation through the Court system out of the 16 municipalities it serves. I do understand the sentiment of our residents and anyone who is a pet owner should be a responsible neighbor and if you are out with your pet, scoop your own poop.
The Veterans Trail Project is an effort to build a multipurpose trail through the cities of Akron, Cuyahoga Falls, Silver Like Stow and Hudson as joint effort between the Summit County Metro Parks and Metropolitan Regional Transit Authority. This is an effort to re-purpose an abandoned railway line owned by the Metropolitan Regional Transit Authority into a multipurpose trail which would be owned and maintained by the Summit County Metro Parks. Council passed legislation that would support using this abandoned railway line as a trail. This is an on-going project and could take several years to come to a final plan but we hope that it will be used in this manner going forward.
As part of the 2021 budget process, we had a presentation related to the Stormwater projects that are expected to take place in 2021. In the past several years the City of Stow has continued to invest heavily in Stormwater Management and 2021 will be no different with an estimate of a million dollars of Stormwater projects. For Ward 2 this includes a project to alleviate some flooding in the Silver Springs Heights neighborhood where it meets the Hike and Bike trail. This was an issue brought to my attention by residents in 2019. At that time, I engaged the city Stormwater Engineer to look into this issue and to see what the City could do to address the issue. I am happy to see that this made the project list this year and will help eliminate flooding to residents properties.
The note debt that is outstanding for the construction of the Courthouse was also re-financed and paid down this year, this brings the note balance to $900,000 and it is expected that this debt will be paid off in the next 2 years. The Courthouse move in 2008 from Cuyahoga Falls to Stow was the first time a municipal courthouse had ever moved in the state of Ohio. Municipal Courthouses in Ohio typically run a deficit and COST the host city money to run every year. In Stow, our Courthouse is run in a very efficient manner and because of the programs they offer in-house, it has been successful in both the paying of its operating expenses along with paying down of the debt related to the Courthouse construction. We hope to see this trend continue but like many areas of our City in 2020, COVID is taking a big toll on the number of cases being handled by the Courthouse. The Courthouse finances will be discussed in depth at our Finance Committee meeting on March 25th.
There will be an additional Finance Committee meeting on March 15th and our next regular Council meeting will take place on March 25th.